Asian American, Native Hawaiian & Pacific Islander Heritage Month 2024
As we conclude AANHPI Heritage Month, we celebrate our community members who identify as Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and/or Pacific Islander and highlight some of the ways that CLA scholars engage with topics relevant to these diasporas.
We’re proud to share some stories from the past year and highlight resources and opportunities.
Culture & Heritage
This Liberal Arts Engagement Hub residency seeks to expand the educational capacity of the Hmong Cultural Center Museum and amplify Hmong voices on campus and in the local community.
Naomi Ko (BA ‘11, art history, English), a recipient of CLA’s 2023 Emerging Alumni Award, is a filmmaker, comedian, and writer. She serves as a cultural producer empowering Asian Minnesotan artistic voices.
As an anthropology student and the daughter of a Korean American immigrant, Samantha Schwartz wants to write an archaeological narrative that is authentic to the Korean American community.
Born in Vietnam, MFA candidate Mai Tran creates intricate woodcut prints that explore the connections between American and Vietnamese cultures. "My woodcut prints hold true to traditional printmaking practices but deliver new narratives, linking one culture to another," the artist explains.
Tenzin Namdul (BA ‘11, anthropology), a recipient of CLA’s 2023 Emerging Alumni Award, has studied Tibetan medicine and culture for years. He is an assistant professor and the director of Tibetan Healing Initiative at UMN’s Bakken Center for Spirituality & Healing.
"Even lifting a paper is easier together"
Jiyeon Lee (BA '24, developmental psychology) served as the student speaker for CLA's undergraduate commencement ceremony on Sunday, May 12. Read the speech.
In this journey, I encountered the wisdom of a Korean proverb, '백지장도 맞들면 낫다', which translates to "even lifting a paper is easier together." This simple yet profound phrase encapsulates the essence of our shared human experience—the belief that burdens become lighter when shared, that any challenge becomes surmountable when faced as a collective.
Social Justice & Transformation
Associate Professor Rachmi Diyah Larasati founded a center of cultural education for young children in Indonesia, where she teaches every summer. She invites the children to think critically about the world around them and connect this understanding to dance, engaging with it by creating their own meaningful choreographies and interpretations.
American Studies PhD candidate Demiliza Saramosing spent last summer conducting fieldwork that will illuminate social injustices and explore the everyday lives and cultures of young adults in occupied Hawaiʻi. The project explores how young adults are impacted by myriad historical and contemporary social, economic, and political circumstances.
Read “Youth Culture, Colonial Legacies, Abolition & Decolonial Justice in Kalihi, Hawaiʻi"
American Studies PhD candidate Richard Lim studies the landscape of inter-racial political activism in Los Angeles, examining coalition-building in social justice organizing and seeking to answer this question: How can politics based on issues of immigration become the conditions of possibility and transformation of entire communities?
American studies PhD candidate Jonny Quenga Borja explores the Complexities of Queer CHamoru Culture. “Art is a very expressive tool, and it’s perfect for finding the convergences and divergences, the trials and tribulations, the joys and the sorrows of the experience of being a queer CHamoru,” they say.
Drawn to the U for its Philippine Student Association and the Marching Band, Angel Enhaynes (BS ‘24, Sociology of Law, Criminology & Justice) plans to pursue a career in the criminal justice system.
Undergraduate Degrees in Asian American and Asian Studies
Minor in Asian American Studies
BA in Asian & Middle Eastern Studies
Minor in Asian & Middle Eastern Studies
Integrated BA/MA Program in Asian & Middle Eastern Studies
Spotlight on the Chinese Flagship Program
The Chinese Flagship program at the University of Minnesota trains the nation’s most qualified undergraduate students from diverse disciplines to achieve superior-level Mandarin Chinese proficiency and promotes their success as global professionals.
Learn with Us
Registration is open for summer and fall ‘24 courses. You do not need to be a degree-seeking student to register; learn about registration as a non-degree-seeking student.
Asian & Middle Eastern Studies Summer Program
Learn about language and culture courses in the Asian & Middle Eastern Studies Summer Program.
Program in Asian American Studies
Taking our inspiration from the words of Grace Lee Boggs, we "embrace the idea that we are the leaders we've been looking for."
Our Asian American Studies Program recognizes both the uniqueness of Minnesota's Asian American populations as well as their commonalities with each other and with other Asian American communities across the nation. Community interests and concerns shape all of our curriculum, research projects, and outreach work.
With our locale, community resources, and faculty, we are helping create new models of teaching Asian American history, politics, literature, and cultures.
Department of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies
We are a dynamic and innovative department that offers courses in the study of the cultures, media, literatures, and languages from Asia and the Middle East. We offer courses in the diverse fields of cultural studies, film studies, gender, religion, poetry and prose, environment, postcolonial studies, and more.
Our majors and minors combine the study of cultures and languages to be astute global citizens. Graduates of AMES work in every field imaginable and pursue graduate degrees in cultural studies, social sciences, law, arts, humanities, and more.
Race, Indigeneity, Disability, Gender & Sexuality Studies
RIDGS provides a recognizable and sustainable hub for rigorous theoretical work and engaged scholarship on diversity, social justice, and inequality. RIDGS brings together faculty to build upon interdisciplinary strengths by fostering intersectional collaborative projects and community engaged research.
RIDGS is dedicated to bringing faculty and students together to pursue lines of inquiry that challenge systems of power and inequality, assert human dignity, and imagine social transformation.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in CLA
The core values of the College of Liberal Arts include
- Freedom of thought and expression
- Respect, diversity, and social justice
- Excellence in all we do
- Efficiency and adaptability in the achievement of our mission
